Obama returns from vacation to blast Republicans on small-business bill

President Obama returned from vacation on Monday to blast Senate Republicans for blocking small-business legislation.

Obama said the GOP opposition is “directly detrimental to
our economic growth.”

{mosads}Obama and Democrats have been pushing the measure for
months, but the president suggested a new urgency in his televised comments
from the Rose Garden, which followed a meeting with his economic team.

The economic recovery is sputtering, and Federal Reserve
Chairman Ben Bernanke last week pledged the central bank would do all that it
could to prevent the economy from sliding back into recession.

Growth in the second quarter was downgraded to an anemic 1.6
percent last week, and a new jobs report on Friday is expected to show little
job growth.

Obama is under intense pressure from his own party to focus
on the economy and jobs, even during a week that is sure to be dominated by
foreign policy. Obama is scheduled to address the country from the Oval Office Tuesday evening about the end of combat operations in Iraq, and the
administration is hosting Middle East peace talks that begin later this week.

In his remarks, Obama said he and his economic team are working to identify additional measure that could promote economic growth and hiring in the short term, including the extension of tax cuts for the middle class, increasing investment in clean energy and research and development, additional infrastructure spending and further tax cuts for businesses that would encourage them to put their capital in the U.S.

Obama said he would address those proposals in further detail in the coming weeks, and then pressed his case for the small business bill.

The president called for bipartisan support to launch a “full-scale
attack” on helping the economy recover, and said the small-business lending
and tax cuts bill should be Congress’s first order of business when they
return.

The remarks, Obama’s first at the White House after a near
two-week absence, suggested Obama and his economic team are frustrated by the
pace of the recovery, and by Senate Republicans who have filibustered the small-business bill.

Obama excoriated Senate Republicans for not allowing a vote
on the measure, which Democrats had hoped to send to the president’s desk before
the August recess.

He said his administration “remains focused every single day”
on improving the economy, and complained that the small-business bill has
“been languishing in the Senate for months.”

Republicans have seized on the stumbling recovery to call
for change in this fall’s midterm elections, when they hope to re-take the
House and possibly the Senate.

House GOP leader John Boehner (Ohio), in a statement
released before Obama’s remarks, reiterated his call for Obama to fire his
economic team. He and other Republicans have focused their recent arguments on
Obama’s proposal to allow tax cuts for the wealthiest taxpayers to expire at
the end of this year, something the GOP argues will hurt small businesses.

This story was updated at 2:43 p.m.